How is it possible for the mind to constantly produce thoughts, and how can we stop that which we have not started?

How is it possible that the mind can go on producing thoughts constantly, and how can we stop that which we have not started?

You have become identified with the mind, that's all. It is natural because the mind is so close to you and you have to use the mind so much. One is constantly in the mind. It is as if a driver has been driving a car for years and has never been out of the car. He has forgotten that he can go out, that he is a driver. He has forgotten completely; he thinks that he himself is a car. He cannot go out because who is there to go out? He has forgotten how to open the door, or the door is completely blocked by not having been used for years. It has gathered rust, it cannot open easily. The driver has been in the car so much that he has become the car, that's all. A misunderstanding has arisen. Now he cannot stop the car, because how…

I have been thinking all day of a way to ask the question: how to stop thinking?

Mind is making almost no noise; goes on working silently. And such a servant! -- for seventy, eighty years. And then, too, when you are dying your body may be old but your mind remains young. Its capacity remains yet the same. Sometimes, if you have used it rightly, it even increases with your age! -- because the more you know, the more you understand, the more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes. When you die, everything in your body is ready to die -- except the mind. That's why in the East we say mind leaves the body and enters another womb, because it is not yet ready to die. The rebirth is of the mind. Once you have attained the state of samadhi, no-mind, then there will be no rebirth. Then you will simply die. And with your dying, everything will be dissolved…

A friend has asked: Osho, you said about a wayward son that one should let him pass through his experiences, and he will learn on his own. But even after experiencing, he still prefers the same thing—someone is asking about his wayward son—no matter how much suffering he has to endure, even if death itself should come, still he does the same. After stumbling again and again, he repeats it. What can be done? How to reform him?

You will not be able to reform him. If life cannot reform him, if even death cannot reform him, what will you be able to do? If what you say is true—that again and again, even after suffering, he does the same thing; even if death comes, he will still do the same thing, and he does not change—then take your hands off. You will not be able to reform him. You cannot be stronger than death. And one who does not learn from suffering—what will he learn from you? Do not call him a wayward son. You have found yourself a Jadabharata. Because those whom suffering does not reform, whom even death does not reform—these are great, arrived masters; they are in the ultimate state. Do not even try to reform such a one. And why are you so eager to reform another? It is enough to reform yourself.…

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.] (Beginning of tape is scrambled) BHAGWAN: The mind is a chattering box. You cannot stop it. The very effort to stop it gives it more nourishment to go on. Millions of people, for centuries have been trying to stop it, and they have all failed, for the simple reason that the desire to stop it is also part of it. It is not beyond it. One side of the mind is desiring the other side of the mind to become silent. This is not possible. The only way few people have been able to stop it without making an effort to stop it, are the people who have disidentified themselves with the mind.

And don't be worried about these thoughts, don't pay too much attention to them. They are okay, nothing wrong in them. Just as the blood circulates in the body, so thoughts circulate in the mind. You are not worried about the blood circulating so why should we be worried about thoughts circulating? It's okay. The mechanism of the mind has to keep functioning and rehearsing to remain efficient. It is homework. When you are thinking something, it is homework, so that when there is some situation you can be ready for it. When awareness becomes perfect then this work is not needed, this homework stops automatically, because then your awareness is so perfect you can be certain that you can rely upon it.